A new production of Ari Rudenko’s Ghosts of Hell Creek will in Bali, Indonesia on June 14-15 source

The dinosaur of the day: Gargoyleosaurus

Ankylosaur that lived in the Jurassic in what is now Wyoming, US (Morrison Formation)

Estimated to be about 9.8 to 11.5 ft (3 to 3.5 m) long

Estimated to weigh up to 2,200 lb (1 tonne)

Type species is Gargoyleosaurus parkpinorum

Described in 1998 by Ken Carpenter and others

Name means “gargoyle lizard”

Genus name is because its profile looks like a gargoyle

Species name is refers to Parker and Pinegar, who found the holotype.

Triangular shaped skull

Skull is longer than it is wide

Had triangular scutes at the rear corners of the skull

Had a narrow rostrum

Had a simple, direct air passage in the snout (not complex and loops as seen in some Cretaceous ankylosaurids)

Had a long, narrow scooped beak

Had deeply inset cheek teeth

Had four kinds of dermal armor: thick, elongated spines, thin, triangular plates with hollow bases, individual flat, keeled ovate scutes, and scutes and ossicles fused into a single sheet

Had postorbital horns

Had shoulder spines

Had a mixture of ankylosaurid and nodosaurid features (jugal horns, hollow based spines and scutes are ankylosaur like, narrow snout is nodosaur like)

Fossils found in 1996 (found holotype and two partial skeletons), holotype includes most of the skull and a partial skeleton

Fossils found by Western Paleontological Laboratories, then donated to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science

A bulldozer had damaged the skull

Gargoyleosaurus is one of two ankylosaurs found in the Morrison Formation, along with Mymoorapelta

In 2013 Ken Carpenter and others described a Gargoyleosaurus pelvis, and found that it had an interesting pelvis, because though it was oriented horizontally, it did not flare out like other ankylosaurs. The Gargoyleosaurus pelvis is “intermediate in its morphology” they said

Originally called Gargoyleosaurus parkpini, then renamed Gargoyleosaurus parkpinorum in 2001 (they had to Latinize the name)

Can see a skeletal reconstruction at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science

Fun Fact:
It’s possible that dinosaurs used feathers to improve their hearing.